Shipping Exec Accused in Collusion Probe

Published 8:00 pm, Monday, June 23, 2003

Federal prosecutors have charged an executive of Stolt-Nielsen Transportation Group with a Sherman Act violation in connection with alleged collusion in the parcel tanker industry.

The Stolt-Nielsen SA unit said in a news release Tuesday that Richard Wingfield, Stolt's Connecticut-based managing director of tanker trading, was suspended from his position. Wingfield was arraigned Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, The Wall Street Journal reported.

He declined to answer questions about the charges, the newspaper said.

In February, Stolt received conditional immunity for cooperating in a global investigation of possible collusion in maritime shipping.

Stolt-Nielsen said Tuesday the Justice Department no longer considered Wingfield to be covered by the conditional amnesty the company was granted.

The chemical shipper is based in Luxembourg, with its offices in Greenwich, Conn.

Investigators say that beginning in at least March 2001 and continuing until October 2002, Wingfield and other conspirators discussed customer prices and agreed not to compete for each others' customers, the newspaper said.

Last year, the Justice Department and the Treasury Department launched probes into whether the shipping company's dealings with embargoed countries such as Iran, Sudan and Cuba violated U.S. laws.

The Journal reported last month that Wingfield participated in a joint venture Stolt set up in 2000 with an Australian company that had business dealings with Iran.

Last month, the company disclosed that it had paid a $95,000 fine to settle a federal investigation of its dealings with Sudan and is being investigated by the Treasury Department for allegedly doing business with Iran.